Congresswoman Crowdsourcing Domain-Seizure Bill on Reddit

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California) has taken to the social news site Reddit to crowdsource legislation that would make it more difficult for U.S. authorities to seize domains facilitating copyright infringement.

The U.S. government has been seizing allegedly infringing .com, .org. and .net domains with court approval, under the same civil-seizure law the government invokes to seize brick-and-mortar drug houses, bank accounts and other property tied to illegal activity. The government has seized more than 750 domains in the past two years under a program called “Operation in Our Sites.”

“The goal is to develop targeted legislation that requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for website operators to defend themselves prior to seizing or redirecting their domain names,” Lofgren said, noting that her proposal only targets sites accused of facilitating copyright infringement.

The United States has the legal right, it says, to seize any .com, .net and .org domain name because the companies that have the contracts to administer them are based on United States soil.

The seizures are not without controversy. For instance, the feds last year seized the domain of a hip-hop blog at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America, only to quietly return the Dajaz1 site more than 13 months later after having found no way to press charges against the New York site for allegedly distributing pre-release music.

When a domain name has been seized, the authorities leave behind messages to visitors informing them that an alleged pirate site has been commandeered by the authorities.